Your Spending and Your Financial Well-Being

Why shopping till you drop won't make you any happier

When a team of Harvard researchers surveyed people about their spending on themselves, their spending on others, and their happiness, they found that spending on oneself does not boost well-being. However, spending money on others does -- and it appears to be as important to people's happiness as the total amount of money they make.

We don't get bored with fond memories like we do with tangible objects.

In another experiment, the same investigators studied people who had recently received a large sum of "bonus" money from their organization's profit-sharing program and tracked how each person chose to spend this money. As you might expect, some people spent their money on personal items such as bills, expenses, rent, mortgage, or material goods. Others spent the extra money on something for another person or donated the money to charity. Again, spending money on oneself didn't boost happiness, while spending the money on others did.

In a third experiment, the researchers tracked individuals throughout the course of a single day. Each study participant received an envelope containing either $5 or $20 and was asked to spend all the money by 5:00 that day. Participants were randomly assigned to either spend the money on personal items, to use it to buy a gift for someone else, or to give it to charity. The amount of money the participants were given had no relationship to their levels of happiness at the end of the day. It was how the money was spent that mattered. Once again, the participants who spent the money on a gift for someone else or who gave it to charity experienced a significant boost in well-being by the end of the day, while people who spent the money on themselves did not.

Spending on experiences and memories

When we are feeling down, trying to cheer ourselves up by going on a personal shopping spree is unlikely to help in the long run. Sadness may even lead us to spend a lot more money on ourselves than we otherwise would. People who were shown a video designed to induce sadness offered to pay nearly four times as much for a product when compared with a group that did not watch the video. Despite this major difference, people in the "sadness" group insisted that the video's sad content had not influenced their decision.

Even though we don't realize it, a bad mood could lead to a cascade of poor financial decisions. While spending on ourselves isn't likely to help much, this research suggests that the worst time to make a major purchase is when you are feeling down. We spend the most when we feel the worst. So much for "retail therapy."

Far more effective at increasing our own well-being and the well-being of others is buying experiences such as going out to dinner or taking a vacation. Experiences last while material purchases fade. Even if you feel better immediately after your purchase, studies show that our satisfaction with material goods decreases over time.

But if we use our money to buy pleasant experiences, we get the benefit of looking forward to the event, the actual experience, and in some cases, decades of fond memories. Material items lose their novelty, but we can relive memories indefinitely. Even brief experiential purchases such as dining out or going to a movie increase our well-being. In addition to satisfying our need for social time, we are less likely to regret experiential purchases, which increases our satisfaction with these decisions over time.

One of the people we interviewed with thriving Financial Well-Being, Susan, is quite frugal in managing her family's money, and she avoids unnecessary purchases. But she and her husband make a point of spending money on fun and memorable experiences such as taking their granddaughter to see a movie. They have also saved money for trips with friends. When we talked with Susan, she and her husband were planning a cruise with another couple. "We've been on vacation with them twice, and we have a really good time together," she said. "So when we told them we were going on a cruise, they said they would go too." When Susan describes the way she spends money, she is mindful about spending on social events instead of focusing on material possessions.

Because spending on experiences boosts our spirits for the long term, it explains part of the connection between money and well-being. For those who make less than $25,000 a year, experiential and material purchases produce similar gains in well-being. However, as income levels increase, experiential purchases produce two to three times the levels of well-being when compared to material purchases.

We don't get bored with fond memories like we do with tangible objects. And we don't second-guess whether we should have made a different decision, as we do with material things. When we purchase meaningful experiences, it buys us memories that continue to grow, and we get more out of every dollar we spend.

The Five Essential Elements of Well-Being

For more than 50 years, Gallup scientists have been exploring the demands of a life well-lived. More recently, in partnership with leading economists, psychologists, and other acclaimed scientists, Gallup has uncovered the common elements of well-being that transcend countries and cultures. This research revealed the universal elements of well-being that differentiate a thriving life from one spent suffering. They represent five broad categories that are essential to most people:

Career Well-Being: how you occupy your time -- or simply liking what you do every day

Recommended

In partnership with leading economists, psychologists, and other acclaimed scientists, Gallup has been exploring the common aspects of well-being that transcend countries and cultures. Researchers uncovered five essential elements that differentiate a thriving life from one spent suffering.

Leading economists are joining researchers who seek new approaches to measuring -- and influencing -- well-being. Here are their latest insights into a subject that has implications not only for business executives, but for global leaders too.

Leading psychologists think that it's time to change the way the world thinks about how to create happy, fulfilling, prosperous lives. That's because well-being does more than make people feel good; it promotes the kind of tangible benefits that can make for stronger, more stable workplaces and societies.